The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation

If, as Darwin suggests, evolution relentlessly encourages the survival of the fittest, why are humans compelled to live in cooperative, complex societies? In this fascinating examination of the roots of human trust and virtue, a zoologist and former American editor of The Economist reveals the results of recent studies that suggest that self-interest and mutual aid are not at all incompatible. In fact, he points out, our cooperative instincts may have evolved as part of mankind's natural selfish behavior - by exchanging favors we can benefit ourselves as well as others.

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters

Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers - questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life. Matt Ridley here probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome.

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge

The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch - the endless fascination human beings have with design rather than evolution, with direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley's wide-ranging, highly opinionated opus demolishes conventional assumptions that major scientific and social imperatives are dictated by those on high.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.

The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed

For every man who always wondered why some guys have all the luck, Mystery, considered by many to be the world's greatest pickup artist, finally reveals his secrets for finding and forming relationships with some of the world's most beautiful women. Mystery gained mainstream attention for his role in Neil Strauss' New York Times best-selling expose The Game. Now he has written the definitive handbook on the art of the pickup.

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.

No More Mr. Nice Guy!

Dr. Glover believes there are men who suffer what he calls the "Nice Guy Syndrome". These men listen, offer advice, and jump at the chance to help. But no matter how hard they try to please others, their own lives are incomplete. Here Dr. Glover offers guidance on how to take back control. He suggests ways to achieve fulfillment in emotional, physical, and professional relationships. By redefining his priorities, any man can create the life he always wanted.

What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire

When it comes to sex, common wisdom holds that men roam while women crave closeness and commitment. But in this provocative, headline-making book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women's arousal and desire inside out. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with renowned behavioral scientists, sexologists, psychologists, and everyday women, he forces us to reconsider long-held notions about female sexuality.

The Natural: How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want

Whether you're looking to play the field or meet that one special girl, world-renowned pickup artist Richard La Ruina has got you covered. In The Natural, he reveals his blueprint for attracting and keeping the kinds of women most men only dream of. It doesn't matter what you look like or how much you make; when you use these methods, it's a whole new game - and you have the unfair advantage.

The Truth

From the author of the blockbuster best seller The Game: a shockingly personal, surprisingly relatable, brutally honest memoir in which the celebrated dating expert confronts the greatest challenge he has ever faced: monogamy and fidelity.

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty

Models is the first book ever written on seduction as an emotional process rather than a logical one, a process of connecting with women rather than impressing them. It's the most mature and honest guide on how a man can attract women without faking behavior, without lying and without emulating others. A game-changer.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

One hundred thousand years ago, at least six human species inhabited the Earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism?

48 Laws of Power

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws. This bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other infamous strategists. The 48 Laws of Power will fascinate any listener interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.

A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

This series of 28 lectures was given by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, during the First World War and first published in English in 1920. The purpose of this general introduction was to present his work and ideas - as they had matured at that point - to a general public; and even though there was to be considerable development and change over the ensuing years, these talks still offer a valuable and remarkably approachable entry point to his revolutionary concepts.

The Modern Scholar: Evolutionary Psychology I: The Science of Human Nature

“Why do we do what we do?” In this thought-provoking series of lectures, Professor Allen D. MacNeill examines the surprising - and sometimes unsettling - answers to this most basic of human questions. The remarkable new field of evolutionary psychology takes a scientific approach to the evolution of human nature. Analyzing human behavior in relation to food, clothing, shelter, health care, and sex, Evolutionary Psychology proves an immensely stimulating exploration of human endeavor.

Get inside Her: The Female Perspective: Dirty Secrets from a Woman on How to Attract, Seduce and Get Any Female You Want

Do beautiful women pass you by? Do you become nervous, anxious, or frustrated at the thought of approaching a woman? Do you wonder why great guys like you end up alone when grade A jerks score all the hotties? Maybe you are one of thousands of men rejected for absolutely no reason, or find yourself on the receiving end of lame excuses (especially when women never call you back)? Unlock the secrets women will never tell men!

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say yes - and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His 35 years of rigorous, evidence-based research, along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior, has resulted in this highly acclaimed book. You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader - and how to defend yourself against them.

Publisher's Summary

Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture - including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband.

Brilliantly written, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.

For anyone interested in evolutionary psychology or why humans are the way the are when it comes to sex, this is a absolute great read. The narration is great and the author has you laughing as much as learning throughout the story. One of the best evolutionary psychology reads I have yet come across.

This is a scholarly treatment of evolution. Of course, procreation is the vehicle of evolution. The first third of the book is all about one celled creatures, frogs, pea hens and birds with some random chimps and whales thrown in. It is a little tough to get through all of that. The author does a reasonable job of identifying all of the prevailing theories. He then attempts to use to other animals to substantiate or diminish those theories.

Only people interested in documentaries are likely to find this book appealing. I found many of the concepts interesting; Do we know they are true? As the author concludes in his summary, who know what errors abound in his work and the work of others. The study of this field is in its infancy.

The first half of the book was absolutely amazing -- beautifully read by Simon Prebble (one of my favorite readers) and completely engaging, effortlessly explaining complex genetic puzzles. But, for me, the book got hard to take when it got to human evolutionary psychology. Maybe I'm one of the PC people Ridley accuses of holding science back, or maybe I'm just a woman from a younger generation, because the things he says about women's and men's different natures just don't ring true to my experience. And in the 20 years since the book was published, many of them have been, if not disproven, then shown to not be as reproducible and universal as Ridley implies.

... I would want to be a microbiologist! Finished Ancestor's Tale by R. Dawkins and loved it, like the story of asking a fish, how's the water... and the fish answers... water? what water? The chemical world that is us seems far more distant than the edge of the visable universe. I'm reading Red Queen on paper and am now downloading it to my iPOD. The goal is... what/why is sex? It's a better question than it sounds... but I'm still struggling with the Hox gene and how it knows where it is. This is a great mystery and if you liked Ancestor's Tale, you'll find this is a fine trip into that next dimension... water? what water?

First of all, this book offers a good history of the thinking about certain aspects of sexual selection from an evolutionary perspective. The narration is excellent, as one should expect from Simon Prebble. The book is generally well-written if less than perfectly edited.

However, I find that the author often falls into a reactionary trap of dismissing too much of the substance of arguments that differ in assumptions or details from his own point of view. Further, the author is often inconsistent about his own apparent principles regarding the appropriate weight that ought to be given to certain scientific studies. In one paragraph he can dismiss the entire premise of the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology while embracing without criticism results of studies in those fields which do happen to match up to his thesis.

And on numerous occasions the author is more than willing to make sweeping assumptions about potential sociological results because "everyone knows" what the answer would be--even while admitting there is no evidence on the subject either way. And in so doing he falls into the exact same traps he criticizes practitioners of those other disciplines for doing so. On one page, he rejects assumptions of anthropologists that lack evidence, and on the next he lambasts them for demanding strong evidence before changing how they do their research.

Finally, besides these numerous logical errors, cherry-picking, and conclusion-jumping, the author demonstrates an unfortunately sloppiness in style when he is willing to constantly assert "boys are X" and "women are Y" and "is it any surprise that boys do X better than girls" and vice versa. Yes, he's right that there are gender differences in psychology and average skill, but he's so interested in proving wrong the social scientists--who, prior to strong evidence becoming available otherwise, preferred to assume both genders thought in the same way--that he raises slight differences in averages into sweeping generalizations that are foundational to his arguments... at least when it suits him. Other times he takes great pains to point out that individuals vary when that helps his argument more.

Overall, not worth the listen. The reactionary tone leads to poor conclusions, and at this point the data is so outdated it's not worth cluttering your mind.

Matt Ridley writes great books. What makes them great is the abundance of information he presents to justify his conclusions as well as his willingness to admit when a conclusion is mere speculation. For anyone interested in evolutionary biology, this is a great book. Two thumbs up (though he does not focus on why only apes have opposable thumbs).

an in depth review of the answers to the question "Why do we reproduce sexually instead of asexually"; at least those answers originating from an evolutionary perspective. It is full of interesting tidbits on the science of reproduction, the most fascinating being the three sex chromosomes of lemmings.

Unless interested in biology, the beginning is a little dry, but completely worth getting through. The more interesting later section uses these concepts and theories to attempt to explain much of human behavior with very plausible and supremely interesting theories.

I have recommended this book more then any other in my library because i believe that it can help with relationships, personal and professional. It gives an insightful glimpse into the interaction that goes on in social dynamics too often not understood or realized yet the effects of those elements are echoed in our day to day lives.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

This book is eye opening! Did you know that attraction is INVOLUNTARY? Yes, yes with some that is obvious but it is also something that you could enhance through other means then the physical. This book gives you the science behind that way better then any of those hair-brained dating books.